Posts Tagged ‘shoulder injury’
Difficult Simplicity
Why did I come up with that silly two-word combination for today’s post title? Physical therapy exercises, that’s why. Yesterday morning I received a phone call before 7:30! Who calls anyone that early? My doctor had news about the MRI of my shoulder confirming a small tear in my rotator cuff. He has referred me to an orthopedic specialist for consultation.
Regardless, I’ve already started seeing a physical therapist to address the shoulder and (not necessarily related) sciatic pain radiating down my left leg. The initial exercises the therapist has prescribed are along the lines of “flossing” the nerve. Inherently simple. They involve only slight motions to be repeated ten or twenty series twice a day.
For something so simple, I am finding it really difficult to accomplish. It’s too easy and doesn’t feel like I am doing anything perceivable in the way of progress. It bores me and I am easily distracted from the task. I find myself inclined to rush things. The 3 or 4 routines for the shoulder and then the same number for my leg/lower back issue are no match for the energizing effort of my long-duration planking or strength poses I regularly do.
Some simple things are difficult to do.
At the same time, I am doing something very easy this weekend.
Guess where we are.
The weather is supposed to become steamy hot for a few days and there is no better place to cope with high heat than on a lake.
Maybe I’ll see how many of my simple flossing motions I can pull off while floating half-submerged in the cool water of Round Lake.
Don’t look now, but there is something going on with the trees up here that hints of a change a-coming.
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Early Hints
In the wee hours of Monday morning, I stepped out on the deck at the lake to look for evidence of the Perseid Meteor shower. I had seen one meteor flash in the predawn hours a day earlier when looking through the bathroom window. It was the weekend of peak activity so I plotted to get a better view the next night. In roughly 10-12 minutes, I saw two streaks.
At 2 o’clock in the morning, that was not thrilling enough to keep me out of bed.
The arrival of the Perseids is a hint of the waning days of summer. Yesterday I noticed another early hint scattered on our driveway.
Those aren’t healthy green leaves that have fallen. The change in sunrise and sunset is just starting to be noticeable. The combination of these two phenomena amplifies the perception of the next season looming in our future.
Cyndie recently commented about how barren some spots on our forest floor are. I pointed out the areas of local farm fields where crops didn’t grow this year. The common factor in these areas is water saturation. Plenty of the low ground in our woods understory stayed so wet it drowned new growth.
I made two trips to River Falls yesterday, which took me past tree removal happening on the property of one of our nearby neighbors. They reported emerald ash borer was killing their big old ash trees. That’s an early hint of what is to come for ash trees everywhere around here.
My trek to River Falls was to consult with my doctor about two issues that I have failed to will away with wishful thinking. The shoulder I injured in a fall last February continues to give me enough pain and weakness that I need to find out if there is a tear that can’t heal on its own. More recently, I’ve started to experience pain that matches sciatica. The doctor suspects degenerating discs in my lower back are leading to pressure on the nerve.
I’ve got an appointment for an MRI to see what is going on in the shoulder, a prescription for a short round of steroids, and orders for physical therapy to address both the back and shoulder. Are my recent problems an early hint of my next level of aging?
News reports recently have featured a scientific study that claims people don’t age at a steady gradual rate. Apparently, we experience bursts of rapid aging in our mid-40s and early 60s. Oof.
The fact that I needed to show my new Medicare card at my clinic visit certainly helped to make me feel not as young as I used to be.
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Saving Money
Last spring I contacted four landscape companies asking for quotes on upgrading our front walkway area which has settled to such a degree it doesn’t properly drain water away from the house anymore. Two of the four responded and showed up to submit a quote. It was good to hear some of their thoughts about possible solutions but the costs were a real shock.
They came in at $11K and $8K to remove what was there and replace it with a new finish.
I decided to do a much more minimalist fix using DIY labor.
We have nibbled away at the project over a very long span of months but the last few days of Cyndie’s boundless energy has increased progress significantly.
We knew there was a concrete sidewalk beneath all that stone but we just didn’t know how much. The bad news is that the concrete had settled in the wrong direction for draining water away from the house.
It occurred to me yesterday that we could hire a concrete lifter to solve that part of the job. We’d need to spend some money on that but it would be a lot less than the cost of total replacement. Then we would be able to more easily finish the re-installation of the slabs and river rock ourselves. Think of the money we’ll save!
I sure hope my body will be up to the task. A shoulder injury I’ve been dealing with for months has recently flared up to a degree that has me questioning the ultimate success possibilities of my self-healing routine. I was enjoying slow increments of improvement that gave me hope prior to a few instances where use caused new pain and loss of strength.
On top of that, for good measure yesterday I dropped some boards on my foot and gave myself a painful contusion.
I was able to toss 80 bales of hay last night without much in the way of limitations, so I’m optimistic my abilities won’t be too much of a problem.
I’ve started watching the 2nd installment of Netflix’s NFL series, “Receivers” and it has me wishing I could have the immediate attention of trainers and physical therapists like professional athletes have.
Of course, by not having them, think of all the money I’m saving!
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Look Down
More often than not, my photographic experiments involve looking straight up at unexpected moments. Looking down rarely offers much in the way of surprises. We are more inclined to look down at where we are about to step than to suddenly tilt our heads to look directly above us.
Still, there are plenty of times when I point my camera lens down to fill the frame with something that captures my attention. Here are some from our visit to the lake place earlier this week…
I have been on limited duty after Cyndie did some research about the symptoms I am still experiencing since my epic “no-brakes” spill down the hill of our backyard a couple of weeks ago. I had been trying to carry on as if I’d suffered nothing more than a bruised shoulder, but my pain and arm weakness were not fading away as I’d hoped they would.
The new plan is to limit my range of motion and get on a regimen of an anti-inflammatory for a while. I’ve started wearing a sling to help me in two ways: to give my shoulder a rest from the weight of my arm and to remind me not to raise that arm to the point I feel pain.
Doctor Internet Research suggests my healing will be well served by avoiding any motion that triggers pain. That idea is the opposite of what I had been doing up to this point. I wasn’t doing myself any favors by repeatedly testing the limits of what I could do by working past a little pain or discomfort in my shoulder.
Hopefully, I can milk this to get out of throwing hay bales around when the next delivery comes. That reminds me, we should probably find out when the next delivery will be coming.
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Relative Something 